It’s time for another Lately post, because there are some good things happening in the world, in the midst of so much tragedy.
What I’m Reading:
The Christian Imagination, by Willie James Jennings. Jennings discusses the rise of racial binaries from early colonization and the Eurocentric ideologies that created the space for black and white racial binaries to emerge, the detriments of this kind of binary to Christianity (at one point, a historical account of the slave trade in Portugal deems black people unable to or very unlikely to become good Christians due to the darkness of their skin), and how to imagine a better way forward.
The Priory of the Orange Tree: A very long fantasy saga that will take me forever, but is very engrossing.
What I’m Loving: Too Good to Go. Too Good to Go is an app that alerts users to restaurants in the area participating in this initiative to limit food waste. We tried it last night, and rescued a box of donuts that would have been thrown out otherwise, at the end of the day. We have a donut for each breakfast through Monday, and it was so easy to reserve a “surprise box” and go in and pick it up. The ones in our area that sell out quickly are the Whole Foods Bakery surprise bag for $6.99, and the Indian Oven surprise bag, available between 8:00 and 9:00pm, filled with leftovers of the day, so you can enjoy a late dinner of delicious Indian food for $4.99. The best part of this app is the sustainability of helping restaurants not have to let their food go to waste.
That Was Us Podcast: This podcast, hosted by Mandy Moore, Sterling K. Brown and Chris Sullivan is a This is Us rewatch podcast. Come for the sponsor breaks and listen to Sterling K. Brown talk about how “luscious” his skin is on Ritual products, and stay for the discussions about meaningful episodes in the life of the show (as if there’s not one…).
Layers weather: It’s time to dress in layers! Hooray :)
What I’m watching: This Is Us: I’m rewatching the show for the second time this year, and will be starting another rewatch, but this one is for the sake of this newsletter. Stay tuned for Spiritual Reflections from The Pearson Legacy: A This Is Us rewatch substack series (working title).
How about you? What are you up to, lately?